The diamond engagement ring is arguably the most universally adopted of all jewelry. It’s artwork that even the most common men and women appreciate, and it’s creation calls for skills that go back centuries. [Jerome Kelty] crafts custom jewelry from platinum. Here’s an in-depth look at his process.

The first step of his Instructable post is so long you might be fooled into thinking it’s the whole post. He shows off the equipment that he used in taking this ring from design to reality — we thought the use of beeswax to pick up small stones is an interesting technique.

Click through the steps to see that he starts with a cad drawing. This model is sent offsite for casting and arrives back as an oversized blank which he then begins to clean up. A range of differend files bring it to its finished shape. He preps the areas where stones will be set. A trip to the buffing wheel gives it the shine it needs before the diamonds are put in place.

As a kid, [Tom] followed all the automotive land speed record attempts on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The cars used in these attempts were all built by guys in their garages, and as a bicycle frame builder, [Tom] is keenly aware of the land speed record for bikes. One thought leads to another, and [Tom] decided he would see how fast one of his frames could go.

Aside from a gigantic gear for his custom bike, [Tom] also needed a little help from a friend. The current land speed record on a bicycle was done by drafting behind a drag racer. [Tom] doesn’t have a drag racer, or a wide expanse of flat open ground in his native England, so he did the next best thing: drafting behind a Ford Zephyr on an abandoned WWII airstrip.

On the runway, [Tom] was able to get his bike up to 80 miles an hour. Wanting to see how fast he could go in ideal conditions, the bike was taken to the garage, put on a pair of rollers, and measured as it was brought up to speed. With a lot of effort, [Tom] was able to get up to 102 miles per hour, incredibly fast for something powered by human muscle.

The project starts off with already tanned leather, so that definitely saves on time. The pieces are marked out on the stock before being cut with a hobby knife. There’s still a long way to go before you can start stitching though. The thickness of the edges is trimmed down and then burnished with a rotary tool. A channel is cut just inside the edges to receive the thickness of the thread. Holes are marked with a special tool, then bored using an awl. Once stitched together the edges are sanded perfectly flush before being burnished.

Just from the look of it we’d guess it’ll hold up years longer than anything you can buy at an ordinary big box retailer.

Want some inspiration to launch your own Handmade adventure? [Anne Hollowday] wrote in to share a series of short films she’s been posting called Makers of Things.

So far there are just four episodes but we hope she makes many more. Above you can see the latest, entitled Woodworker. It’s a monologue-style interview with masters of their crafts. The first installment looks at an engineering club called SMEE that builds a wide range of intricately engineered things like clocks. There’s another maker who builds miniature models of machines. And of course, The Problem Solver whose high-tech endeavors parallel the subjects of interest found on our main site.

This teardrop camper is more about the angles than it is the curves. That makes construction quite a bit easier. But it’s not only the shape that catches our eye. This one’s built to last and has some nice amenities like a built-in sound system and a galley in the rear storage area. The project is quite old, but a good hack like this one is really timeless.

Head on over to the Desert Dawg website for a project overview. This proves to be quite a different build than the teardrop project from last week. The frame of the trailer started it’s life hauling around a boat. The long nose was cut and the cross pieces welded in place to form the final footprint for the camper which is large enough for a queen sized mattress. In addition to comfortable sleeping, the kitchenette revealed when you lift the back hatch will make cooking on the go a breeze.

We have very few books hanging around the house which makes this small attractive assembly quite enticing. It was built by [Eric Whyne] who wanted to make sure the casual observer didn’t think it was store-bought. In choosing wood he tried to find a couple of show pieces with visually appealing flaws like the broken out knot seen on the bookend.

In addition to the blemish, he chose joinery techniques that would show off craftsmanship not generally found on mass-produced goods. And we’d say he succeeded. The rails attach to the end pieces using a mortise and tenon joint with a wedge to hold things tight. It’s similar to how an ax handle is mated with the blade. The mortise gets a bit of a flair, and a slot cut in the tenon is forced to grip that flair using a small wooden wedge. Here’s an in-depth description of this type of joint.

We just have to mention that we endorse his reading selection. Snow Crash and Burning Chrome are among our favorite novels.

Handmade coffee is a feature we need to write. But for now we present this copper kettle which is designed to pour out the boiling water very slowly in order to achieve the perfect cup of slow-drip java.

[CHS] made the kettle for his friend [Nate]. The entire process starts off with an arc of flat copper sheet which makes a slightly conical cylinder when curved until the two ends meet. Getting a water tight seal on this seam is imperative and it took four or five tries to reach perfection.

To get the kettle in shape [CHS] improvised a mandrel out of a thin slice of railroad track. After polishing it smooth it goes on the inside of the copper and gives him something to hammer against. We think this step is magic… It’s kind of like the old sculpting adage that you remove everything that isn’t what you’re trying to end up with. The beauty of the piece really pops out as the final curves are hammered into the work.

Replica prop gurus already know [Lucas]‘ original prop department based Han Solo’s BlasTech DL-44 blaster off an existing gun – the Mauser C96. Along with this gun, there were a few extra bits and bobs tacked onto this gun, including an old German scope, a flash hider from an aircraft machine gun, and even a few bits of metal from a model airplane.

All these extra parts and greeblies are very hard, if not impossible to find. Thankfully, there are a bunch of very skilled replica prop makers reproducing these parts for anyone who wants a very accurate DL-44 Blaster. [Norm] from Tested and [Adam] assembled these parts into an incredibly accurate replica of the ‘hero’ blaster – by far the most identifiable of Solo’s many iterations of blaster seen in Star Wars ep. IV.

They needed a place to stay on road trips and at music festivals. This teardrop camper certainly fits the bill. And it’s got a look that will make you proud to unfold yourself into the parking lot every morning.

Starting from a flat frame the camper skeleton was built up using plywood sides and cross pieces to help support the sweeping roof. It was then covered with 1/4″ Birch plywood which has enough flexibility to follow the contour. Inside you won’t find much in the way of frills, but the entire floor is a 4″ thick foam mattress which is a lot better that camping out. There’s a dome on top which can opens for ventilation and a hatch on the rear to carry some extras along on your adventure.